Tali betrayed me, BioWare betrayed me!

Yes, this IS a rant… (not about the ending though, this is about LOVE and CHOICE).
I’ve just gotten around to playing Mass Effect 3 single player campaign (the life of a games is busy these days and I still have some catch-up to do) and after 20+ hours I found Tali, my love, cheating on me with Garrus!

Why Tali, why?
Now I admit Garrus is quite a good-looking fellow and I also know she is innocent.
She’s totally oblivious of our previous relationship.
“How did that happen?”, you’re wondering…

Well, I played ME1 on the PC, as I didn’t have an Xbox at the time and personally loved the interface and feel, so much that I bought ME2 for the PC as well, even though I did have an Xbox at the time (ME2 had been seriously optimized for console/pad though, compared to the first chapter).

I’m not sure how people usually manage their PCs but personally I do upgrade every few years, get new and faster Hard drives when there’s a chance and rarely keep the same Windows install for more than 1 year.
So by the time I played ME2 I didn’t have anything to import.
No worries though, the introductory comic did take care of the choices I made in the previous chapter.

Mass Effect becoming available on the PS3 was a huge boon for me, as it is my primary gaming console, so I obviously jumped at ME3 for PS3 (even because of the multiplayer).

So, I didn’t have any previous import this time as well, but no introductory comic either… I just got to choose I saved Alenko and that was about it.

I didn’t realize, at the time, that I was NOT going to play the final chapter of MY saga, but rather I would be playing BioWare’s choices.
Honestly I’m really puzzled… why wouldn’t they offer a summary of previous choices?
Why didn’t they offer to choose who had previously been your romance? Who you had saved rather than abandoned?

I SAVED Wrex in ME1 and met with him as head of Clan Urdnot in ME2 and now he is dead…
I had SAVED the Rachni queen, fascinated by the song she shared with her whole race and now I had killed her.
And I had had a romance with Tali and now she’s flirting with Garrus.

Was this a wise decision by BioWare? Not to offer a choice from the storyline told in the previous chapters to new players?
Or rather, to players that did NOT have a save to import.
I didn’t care for the experience or boosts, but I DID care for my choices. They’re what made the saga MY saga.
Sure, I’m part of a minority but honestly, in the timespan of some years, is not so unlikely to have HD failures, console failures, to decide to switch gaming platform and so on.

I think that out there, there’s players like me that played the whole saga, that wrote their own story but that (for any reason) didn’t have a file to import.
And we lost our choices, we lost our story and saga.

Why would BioWare offer a choices-comic-recap for ME2 but not for the final chapter?
Does it make any sense?
Why would they ignore us?

It’s a rant.
I don’t care I could have checked on the internet, I don’t spoil myself about games I love.
I don’t care I should have played ME2 again on PS3, didn’t make any sense (if I knew how things would go, I probably would have done it, too late now though).

And I’m really pissed off right now: because Wrex had died and I could not save Eve (probably the only krogan I ever cared for) and I have to deal with this hideous Wreav guy that I can’t stand.
Because there’s this aura of machismo in the air that’s for developing teenagers (“Hell yeah!” WTF).
Because instead of romancing Tali I can romance this useless journalist chick (the did outsource her model to a low cost Chinese company, didn’t they? Her stance is awful) by asking her to jump in bed (machismo again).

Apart from a virtual broken heart, the point here is: there are choice that are made during the development of a game that can really change the experience for users.
With Mass Effect, BioWare wanted to create a grandiose sci-fi saga, which they did, and then fall short so miserably by forgetting to give every player the chance to feel like the major player/writer of this saga.
Lack of time? Maybe, since many of the releases of this last part of the current generation feel rushed in a way or another.
Certainly anyway, lack of vision, cutting “unnecessary options”, giving a little less than a little more. That was really a pity.

And so… the final chapter of the saga for me ends with a “meh”.
I still love the Mass Effect universe though, that’s for granted… just not BioWare :P!

I'm not sure if this is how Bioware did it or not, but this is how I would have done it if I was them. Figure out what happened most often and make that the default. Did more gamers save Wrex or kill him, and did more gamers romance Ashley or Laura? Get a record of these, and bioware could have do it(the just released an infographic on the choices from Me3), and make it the default choice for people who don't import.

Correct me if I am wrong as it's been awhile since I finished this series but dosen't EVE's survival depend on wether you keep or destroy Maelon's data in Mass Effect 2 and then you have to get her extracted during that Cerberus onslaught? And are you sure there wasn't an option to save or destroy Maelon's data if you don't have a save from ME2? I imported my save from ME2(PS3) with the Platinum so everything worked out perfect for me as far as choices in who lived, died and romanced(miranda), so I can't say I have any regret in the series other than the underwhelming ending. Maybe you should pick up the trilogy and have another go to get the bad taste out of your mouth.

Unfortunately not, you need to have that choice in an imported save (choice that I had on my PC save :P).

"The only way to keep Eve alive is to complete Old Blood on an imported character, and save the data.

Eves survival has two major effects:

- If Eve dies, there is a -50 modifier on Krogan War Assets. Her survival prevents this. - If Eve survives, you are unable to convince Mordin to sabotage the cure - the only way to do so is to kill Mordin yourself. You monster."

Okay, I tried a new game and your right the only option is choosing Ashley or Kaidan, but the good news is if your willing to pay $3.99 there is the Mass Effect 3 Genesis 2 on PSN under add-ons for Mass Effect 3 it fills in both ME1 and 2 and allows you to make key plot decisions like the ME2 ps3 Genesis did for ME1. Basically it's the Genesis they added for the WiiU version of ME3 since there is no ME1-2 on WiiU.

I totally agree with you (theChickGamer). Bioware didn't pay too much attention to those details and now you (and people like you) just cannot have the "right ride" over 3 chapters and 5 years of gaming, just because something goes wrong.

I have a similar experience, but I was lucky to found the time to play again and again the game :

ME1 - first on X360 then PC ME2 - first on PC then PS3 (thanks to the comics) ME3 - PS3 and I play the story exactly as I "planned"

They can enjoy their ride now since Genesis 2 was released on PS3, it's the WiiU's version of filling in the back story of ME1,2 and allowing you to make key plot decisions from those 2 games carry over to 3. But yeah it may be a little late for most people who played the game at launch.